Please see the memo below from Acting Commissioner McAleenan. It details some of the measures being considered in the process to recruit, hire, and train an additional 5000 Border Patrol agents beyong the Congressionally mandated staffing level of 21,370 agents.

President Obama continues to demonstrate that enforcing the law is not his priority. Today NBPC President Brandon Judd testified under oath in front of the House of Representative Judiciary Committee. In his testimony, Judd confirmed the existence of what has become known as “catch and release”. This program directly violates the President’s “Priority Enforcement Guidelines” by refusing to process and deport those who have entered the US illegally after December 31, 2013.

On Friday, September 25, 2015, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued their final regulations to implement Part 2 of the Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Act (BPAPRA). A review of the regulations has revealed that OPM is interpreting certain portions of the BPAPRA contrary to what was intended by Congress when they drafted and passed the BPAPRA into law, for example, a prohibition on Alternate Work Schedules (AWS) and additional compensation for canine handlers on their assigned days off duty. There is also confusion on the section that deals with CBP being allowed to drop employees from one tier to another; however, it only clarifies what the Union had made clear prior to the regulations being published, which is that employees will not be able to artificially enhance their retirements by working a lower level of pay for the majority of their career and then at the end, bumping up to a higher level in order to get a greater annuity. The Union will work with Congress in order to resolve the issues via another Amendment to the BPAPRA, or in the case of the canine handlers, through litigation. Click below to read the OPM final regulations.